“How to live as freely as you?”, is a question I’ve been asked many times, so here are my thoughts..
What does it mean to live freely? to live a life true to me where I can express myself and walk my own path. One of, if not the most important step was to heal my trauma. More answers in the Q&A below.
Q&A about healing & creating
Q: What was the one thing that helped you become aware?
A: When I stopped running from my pain and began feeling and allowing it.
Q: How did you learn to follow your intuition?
A: I don’t think I ever learned it, it was always there. Like breathing. But being in isolation might have also helped because I didn’t have outside influence to affect how I expressed myself. It’s a lot easier to express yourself when no one cares.
Q: How did you learn to express and live freely?
A: Going from invisible, inhibited and hyper alert everywhere and all the time, to being visible, free and relaxed has taken me basically all my 20’s to learn and it’s still a learning curve. It meant a lot of grieving how scared and worthless I felt, while being in so much doubt and mistrust, because I didn’t believe that it would ever change. Surrendering to the fact that I would never be free, finally made me stop fighting and grieve all that had happened up until that point. When you feel there is nothing ahead of you anymore, it feels like giving up, but really it’s more about giving in, to stop looking ahead and look behind instead. You can’t move forward if you haven’t yet accepted the past.
Q: How do you express yourself and not care about what others think?
A: I am not indifferent to people’s reactions and I have been met with a lot of silence, misunderstanding, hatred and ridicule when I’ve shared myself and my creations. Which has affected me a lot. But I continue to listen to my inner voice. If it tells me something, I listen. Listening to myself will always be more important than listening to others. It’s my life, and only I know what I need or what is right, no one else. If my inner voice, my soul, my being, my higher self speaks to me, I listen and react. Even if it doesn’t make sense.
Someone once asked me, if I wasn’t embarrassed to post a photo of a laundry line, because they thought, that if they themselves did that they would feel self-conscious and think that people would judge them. Which got me thinking about how we always look for meaning in everything. Maybe expression doesn’t have to have ulterior motives. Maybe you see something beautiful and you wanna share it. Maybe your inner voice is telling you to. Maybe you feel peaceful by looking at this certain thing. Maybe you like the vibe. Maybe it just gives you joy.
Maybe the sole purpose can be to share and express because it feels good to do so. It also reminds me of how limited we become when everything revolves around: “What would people think?”. My answer is: let them. And if you think they would judge you, it shows how you are already judging yourself. And why not use your fear? – share how you feel self-conscious about sharing or even just talk to yourself about it, to figure out why you judge yourself for wanting to express yourself freely.
Q: What was the most important thing that helped you heal trauma?
In very, very, very simple steps:
1. face what happened (rationally)
2. feel what happened (emotionally & physically)
3. express myself
It has also been about: learning to be vulnerable, nervous system regulation, listening to myself, letting go of people pleasing and so much more.
Q: Apart from intuition what is the most important part of creating?
A: What I described in a previous answer; to not think too much about what my purpose with it is but think: if it feels right, it is right. And also to not get caught up in being perfect or having to stay in a niche. Especially when you’re a multipotentialite.
Q: What is your goal now?
A: My goal is to continue to listen inwards, stay in my own energy, allow myself to shine, express myself freely even if it doesn’t make sense right now (eventually it will), to connect to myself and others and have trust that I am where I need to be.
Matilde Rudolph 